Told to take DD to auditions, advice please

[CarmenBurrito]

My DD has recently done a holiday club close to where we live. It was predominately for parents working in the film industry (film studios close to us) but because of the scriptwriters strike there were fewer takers than expected from the industry and it was opened up for local children.

DD had a great time. On the last day, one of the team leaders spoke to me and told me DD is “extremely talented” at acting and dancing and all the leaders agreed she should be going for auditions.

DD is at primary school and has been in a few class plays which she enjoyed. She is also very much into a sport which takes up a lot of the weekend.

I was a big surprised and have no experience of theatre/ acting/ film. I asked the holiday club people where to take her for auditions and was suggested Stagecoach classes. I had a look online and this looks like an out of school club with quite a high time commitment, but not necessarily auditions. Does anyone have experience of this? I’m not really sure what to do, nor is DD.

Hi Carmen
Performing Arts School owner here. Stage Coach is a nationally franchised performing arts school of varying quality. There’ll probably be a better school locally with a quick Google search or ask on a local Facebook group.
Some schools have an agency attached to them but most don’t. Most acting work comes through your child’s agent although West End productions (if you’re in the right area) usually have open calls that you can sign up and take your child to).
Have a look around and find a school that fits in with your ethos and schedule and then talk to the owner.

I was just going to say avoid franchises such as Stagecoach and PQA and find a good independent theatre school that will nurture your child’s potential.

Where are you based? There are some great theatre classes all over. Saturday stage school has been life enhancing for my kids. Brought them so much fun and amazing experiences. Plenty of agents out there eg daisy and dukes without a stage school attached so you don’t need them to be joined

Thank you for your helping replies. I am based in Watford.

@Fluteytooting please would you explain open calls. I am not sure what these are.

An open call is one where children who aren’t represented by an agent are able to attend. You can find these by looking on social media for either the casting director or sometimes the show or theatre.
If you’re local to Watford then The Dan Tien and The Academy seem to be well respected. I can’t vouch for either of them personally but have heard good things. It depends what you’re looking for as to which will suit you best.
There is a Facebook group which has lots of advice on finding an agent if that’s what you want to pursue. It is very time consuming, can be expensive and very few children actually get any work. But it can also be very rewarding and good fun.

That is so helpful. Thank you.

Watford - try the palace theatre for their lessons? Or lots of choice in St Albans. Best theatre arts is excellent.

Please be aware of the time commitment and expense of doing this seriously (given you thought Stagecoach was high commitment).

You, as a parent, will need a flexible job and family set up should your child be successful at this. And enough disposable income to afford the training, travel, headshots, fees and other stuff that it entails.

West End musicals are generally a 6-8 month commitment. During that time you are not allowed to ever be more than an hour from the theatre - so no holidays, no birthday parties, no trips to see granny, no school residentials etc etc.

For auditions, some are 1 days affairs, but we have done some that needed almost 5 days off work/school by the time we got to the bitter end.

For anything more than open calls, you will need an agent. And then the joys of the 'self-tape' start.

Only do this if your child is desperate to do it and will literally breathe it, and if they are also resilient - there is so much disappointment on offer that they will need to be able to take the knocks and get straight back up again.

No regrets here - would do it all again - but it's not something to go into without weighing up if it's possible for your family.

Thanks for this @OhCrumbsWhereNow My child isn’t desperate. She went on a holiday club really because I needed childcare. I don’t have a flexible job and your post has given me a lot to consider. Very helpful to have all this information.

I absolutely agree with Crumbs above. It is a real commitment and not one to be undertaken lightly! Why not try a few lessons and see how that goes initially.

Sound like, at this stage, joining a weekend theatre school will be enough to give her some more experience and see how much she loves it.

One of mine did have an agent and has done a couple of jobs but it's so much effort, time and disappointment and she enjoys all the amateur stuff more so we withdrew her. So now, as well as weekend theatre school, she goes to local auditions and has had some wonderful experiences. I follow various groups on social media so I can tell her about auditions I've found: local theatres to look out for panto auditions and am dram societies (good lists on NODA site).

Some predominantly adult societies often have children in their shows. It is hugely time consuming for her though, on average she does around 8 hours a week rehearsing or training and show weeks way more.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow always has advice I agree with on this topic. Crumbs’ performer is older than mine but I have the feeling we are working our way through all the same places, just a while later. Which at least says that a lot of things in this industry stay the same over time!

Something like Stagecoach will be the least time commitment, so it is useful if DD wants to try it for a term and see how she gets on, but like PP said, the franchise model means the quality of teaching is quite inconsistent from area to area. Both the franchises and independent programmes are likely to offer a trial lesson free so you can try and see what feels best before you put a term’s tuition on the table.

The age window for this whole world of auditions is a little unique so worth knowing before you get started. West End kids for most roles need to be 9-13 and look young. ‘Playing down’ is a thing in screen work too, and it makes a lot of sense. If you had to work with a six year old character on a tricky scene, would you have a better time working with an actual real live six year old, or a nine to ten year old with more concentration and understanding who happens to look six? Plus nine is the magic age when it’s legal for them to work more hours and be at the theatre later. Then the same happens with the next age bracket: a 16yo who can play 13 is more likely to get the part than an actual 13 year old. So if she’s short and baby-faced, she has a longer window of potential work, and if she’s tallest in her class, unfortunately that’s a very small window for even the most talented children. There is more leniency in screen work.

I would very much caution against pushing any child, no matter how talented, to start auditioning for projects unless there is a clear desire from the child. There are many who are pushed because there are enough parents convinced it’s the right thing, but the child needs a thick skin, a real ability to listen and apply direction (this is different to tidying your room or going to bed when told - mine is rubbish at that but great at the other kind!), a temperament that doesn’t dissolve with weird hours of late nights/early mornings/travel, a bucket of confidence, good skills in working closely with adults, and So Much Motivation. These kids talk and my DS always comes home telling me he feels bad about so and so he’s met at a workshop or whatever because the child has said to the other kids that they don’t want to be there and a parent ‘made them go’.

I would really recommend trying a term in a one-day-a-week program for her and see how all of you get on then make a decision in December if you want to look for an agent and follow that path. Equally she might decide one day a week and the odd school play is exactly what she’d love!

To give you an idea of the time commitment if she did start working after successful auditions, my DS trains in person four days a week and on Zoom two. A good half term of school he was in rehearsals about half his regular school hours, and then once rehearsals ended it moved from a daytime commitment to mostly evenings. Child stage roles are shared so they don’t work every day - might be a third or a quarter of the shows - and each show has their own way of how they organise the rota. And you don’t get a discount for the training they miss on days they work.

If your work isn’t flexible, you will need a village ready to share out the load of being a stage mum taxi. I know lots of families who do it that way and others where one parent either doesn’t work or has a very flexible job.

But if a child loves it and it’s what they want to do, it is really wonderful to watch them do amazing things and be so happy! Worth letting any kid with an interest investigate it a little further - worst case they get extra confidence speaking in front of others and that is mo bad thing in life!

@CarmenBurrito, you've had some great advice above. I also have a performing DC, who did a lot of professional theatre when he was younger and is now learning to negotiate the post-licence acting world (until age 16, children need a licence from the LEA to perform in most professional and some amateur contexts, and can only work a limited number of hours).

If your DD enjoys performing, I'd follow the advice above and look for some good-quality performing arts classes. If she's keen to be in a production, you could keep an eye out for audition calls put out by local theatre groups.

Amateur theatre can actually offer more chances to perform for a child who just loves being on stage. One of the most frustrating aspects of being on the professional audition circuit is that children rarely get to actually perform outside an audition room, because the industry is so competitive that the chances of being cast in any role are relatively small. And these days, most of them don't even get the chance to perform inside an audition room, because most first-round auditions are done via self-tape - film the audition at home, send it in to the agent or casting director...and never hear another word about it again. Feedback doesn't happen in this industry unless a child gets very close to being cast, and then it's usually just "the director thought someone else was a better fit for the role".

It takes quite a robust personality (child and parent!) to put a huge effort into tape and after tape without any tangible reward.

If you do decide to look for an agent in future, look for one which is a member of the AYPA (Agents of Young Performers Association). You should NEVER have to pay a fee to join an agency. You will usually be asked to pay a fee to join Spotlight, because that is the main online casting platform where agents submit clients for roles, but reputable agents earn money from commission on their client's earnings, so should only offer to represent a child that they think is talented enough to secure work. An agent will usually also ask you to get some professional headshots after you join an agency, but you don't need professional headshots to apply to an agency - any clear well-lit head-and-shoulders portrait on a phone camera is good enough for that. Prices for headshot photographers can be eye-watering, but there are plenty of good ones at the less painful end of the £££ scale.

If you are considering an agent, bear in mind that that the demands of auditions (and jobs) vary depending on the type of work. Agents like commercial work because it can pay well (so they earn a good chunk of commission). However, commercial auditions are more likely to be in-person and often operate to very short time-scales - as in, email at 4pm for an audition at 10am next morning, meaning a scramble to get permission from school and/or work for a morning off to dash into central London to spend 5 minutes (literally) inside an audition room. Commercials often "pencil" (provisionally book) several children for a job, so you do all the paperwork for a licence, arrange time off etc, the child gets excited, and then the pencil "snaps" and it's all off. However the time commitment if you actually get a commercial job is often relatively limited. Theatre and film auditions, on the other hand, often take place over a longer time-scale with more notice, but require a much bigger time commitment if cast (and kid's theatre pay is rubbish, even in the West End 😂).

The professional performing arts world is never dull, and my DS has had some fantastic experiences and worked with amazing actors, but it is a whole-family commitment and not for the faint-hearted!

“West End kids for most roles need to be 9-13 and look young.”

My 7yo was so annoyed at me when I said she was already too tall to play Matilda before she would be old enough to audition. I’m amazed they continually manage to find absolutely tiny but super talented girls for that role.

With the role of Matilda, they will never cast a child under the age of 10, but they will audition them from age 8 and then bring them back every 6 months to keep an eye on them. (DD did well over 20 rounds by the time she was done with that one).

And yes they are all really teeny and they have no problems finding hundreds of them.

DD had a growth issue as a young child and I remember her telling the endocrinologist she needed to stop her growing as she had to stay under 4ft 3" till 11. The endocrinologist was shocked when DD explained about height and Matilda - got her charts out, and basically said she should be holding a clinic alongside the audition room!

We were incredibly fortunate that DD was diminutive as a child and then grew like a weed at 13. I know so many girls who were either always too tall for everything, or who were tiny and successful as children but are now finding it hard to get adult roles when they're only 4ft 6 and in their 20s.

And as a parent you end up utterly obsessed with the tape measure and panicking about heights. I've sat in waiting rooms so often where girls are lined up against a mark on the wall and sent straight home if they are over. Never, never turn up to an audition with a height limit unless child is definitely under - they won't even see them on the day.